Under Turkish IP Law (No: 5846), the artist or the owner of the
artistic work has certain moral and material rights to protect
his/her project. However, there are questions as to whether
this protection can be extended to buildings which are the end
product based on the project of the architect.
Up until mid 2000s, the building which is the end product of the
project was seen as part of the project. Therefore, architects were
considered to have material and moral rights over projects and any
building that was built with a project that was developed by an
architect.
However, since 2005 there has been a shift in the court
decisions and a distinction is made between the project and the
building. In the recent decisions, the project is regarded as a
literary work as stipulated in Art. 2 of the IP Law and there is no
requirement for such work to have artistic value to be protected
under IP Law. Therefore, it is possible to say that the architect
has absolute rights on
